Looking for Patterns: Using Assessment

Data to Inform Literacy Instruction for

Struggling Readers

Drs. Xiaoping Li & Ming Zhang

Central Michigan University

March 17, 2018

Introduction➢ Every year thousands of U.S. students take standardized

tests and state reading tests, and every year many are

struggling. We need to dig deeper and find the answers

as to why they are struggling. In this presentation, we will

introduce three models of identifying patterns of reading

difficulties. Then, we will explain how we use multiple

measures to identify patterns of reading difficulties of

three struggling readers. Finally, we will describe how we

used the patterns to guide our intervention.

Patterns of Reading

Difficulties

➢ Valencia and Buly (2004) 6-cluster

model

➢ Spear-Swearling (2016) 3-common-

type model

➢ McKenna & Stahl (2015) 3-dimension

cognitive model

➢Looking for Patterns: 6 Cluster

Model

➢ In order to find out why so many students were failing

the state assessments. Valencia and her team took 10%

of the students who failed the fourth-grade reading tests

and conducted individual reading assessments to see

why they failed and what they were struggling with.

➢ The scores fell into three categories: word identification,

meaning, and fluency.

➢ They used clusters to analyze their data and see what

the students were struggling with and why they failed the

state assessment.

➢ Cluster 1: Automatic word caller

Students in this cluster can decode words quickly and

accurately, but fail to read for meaning. They may have

great word identification but struggle with

comprehension.

➢ Cluster 2: Struggling Word Callers

Students in this cluster not only struggle with meaning,

like the Automatic Word Callers in Cluster 1, but they

also struggle with word identification. Some students

may also struggle with comprehension.

➢ Cluster 3: Word Stumblers

Students in this cluster have substantial difficulty with

word identification, but they still have strong

comprehension. Sometimes students are so focused on

understanding what they are reading that they focus

solely on self-correcting and reading every word the

correct way.

➢ Cluster 4: Slow Comprehenders

Students in this cluster struggle with comprehension but

may be strong in word identification. Students may also

have some difficulty in fluency. Most students in this

cluster did not enjoy reading and therefore will fall further

behind their classmates.

➢ Cluster 5: Slow Word Callers

Students in this cluster are slow at word identification

and struggle with comprehension. Some students who

struggle with word identification also struggle with

fluency. On occasion, students struggle with

comprehension. Most likely these students lack basic,

early reading skills such as decoding.

➢ Cluster 6: Disabled Readers

Readers in this group are experiencing severe difficulty

in all three areas-word identification, meaning, and

fluency. This is the smallest cluster, but all students in

this cluster fail state reading assessments.

Spear-Swerling’s Three Common Types of

Reading Problems

Spear-Swerling (2016) reviews research on three common patterns of poor reading: specific word-reading difficulties, specific reading-comprehension difficulties, and mixed reading difficulties.

She explains how teachers can use assessments to identify individual struggling readers’ patterns of reading difficulties, and how this information is valuable in differentiating classroom instruction and planning interventions.

Common Patterns of

Reading Problems

13

The 3-Dimension Cognitive Model

McKenna, M. C., & Dougherty Stahl, K. A.

(2015). Assessment for reading instruction (3rd

ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Press. ISBN#

978-1-4625-2104-3

The Cognitive Model

Phonological

Awareness Decoding and

Sight Word

KnowledgePrint

Concepts

Fluency

in

Context

Automatic

Word

Recognition

Reading

Comprehension

Language

Comprehension

Strategic

Knowledge

General

Purposes

for Reading

Specific

Purposes

for Reading

Knowledge of

Strategies

for Reading

Vocabulary

Knowledge

Background

Knowledge

Knowledge of

Text and Sentence

Structures

Let’s translate the model into

a series of guiding questions.

Think about the data we will

need to answer them.

1. Automatic Word Recognition

➢ Is the child able to read texts at his or her grade

placement level with automatic word recognition and

adequate expression?

➢ Is the child fluent in context?

➢ Does the child have adequate sight-word knowledge?

➢ Does the child have adequate knowledge of decoding

strategies?

➢ Does the child have adequate phonological

awareness?

➢ About which concepts of print does the child have

knowledge?

2. Language Comprehension

➢ Is the child able to comprehend the language of

the text?

➢ Does the child have an adequate vocabulary for his or

her age and grade?

➢ Does the child have the background knowledge

necessary to understand the particular passage that

he or she is reading?

➢ Is the child able to use common text and sentence

structures to aid in comprehension?

3. Strategic Knowledge

➢ Does the child have adequate knowledge of the

purposes for reading and possess

strategies to achieve those purposes?

➢ Does the child have a set of strategies that he

or she can use to achieve different

purposes in reading?

➢ What does the child view as the goal of

reading in general?

19

TABLE 11.2 Basic Assessment Tools (McKenna & Dougherty Stahl, 2015)

K-Grade 1 Grades 2-4 Grades 5-8

Concepts about Print • Concepts about print and

book-handling tasks (Forms

4.1, 4.2)

• Hearing and Recording

Sounds in Words (Form 4.5)

Phonological Awareness • Tests of Phonemic Awareness

(Form 4.5)

• Hearing and Recording

Sounds in Words (Form 4.5)

Development of word Recognition • Isolation: Sight Words (Form

5.4 or 5.5)

• Informal Phonics Inventory

(Form 5.2)

• In context: running records

and IRIs

• Isolation: Sight Words (Form

5.4 or 5.5)

• Informal Phonics Inventory

(Form 5.2) or Z-Test (Form

5.1)

• In context: running records

and IRIs

Optional

•Isolation: Test of word recognition

efficiency

•In context: running records and IRIs

Spelling Development • Primary Spelling Inventory and

Feature Guide

• In context: Analyze a writing

sample using Qualitative

Spelling Checklist (Form 5.7)

• Elementary Spelling Inventory

and Feature Guide (Form 5.6)

• In context: Analyze a writing

sample using Qualitative

Spelling Checklist (Form 5.7)

• Elementary Spelling Inventory

and Feature Guide (Form 5.6)

• In context: Analyze a writing

sample using Qualitative

Spelling Checklist (Form 5.7)

Reading Fluency • Prosody Rating

• Beginning Midgrade 1, rate

(wcpm)

• Rate (wcpm)

• Prosody Rating (Table 6.1)

• Rate (wcpm)

Comprehension • Running record or IRI

Error Analysis

RetellingPrompted recall

• IRI

Retelling

Prompted Recall

• IRI

Retelling

Prompted Recall

Strategic Reading • Purposes for Reading Interview

(Form 9.1)

• Index of Reading Awareness

(Form 9.2)

• Textbook Interview (Form 9.3)

Motivation/Attitudes • Elementary Reading Attitude

Survey (Form 10.3)

• Elementary Reading Attitude

Survey (Form 10.3)

• Adolescent Reading Attitudes

Survey (Form 10.4)

➢ THREE STRUGGLING

READERS: A Close Look Dan is a ten-year-old fourth grader attending a public elementary

school in Central Michigan. Dan had social challenges at his previous school and medical challenges in his early years of schooling. His standardized testing from his previous year in school indicates reading difficulties. Dan is currently in the process of completing his second year of fourth grade.

John is a ten-year-old fourth grader. He attends a public elementary school in Central Michigan. He came to the reading clinic at Central Michigan because he struggles with reading, writing, and spelling. John has been classified with ADHD and receives medication for it.

Natasha is a nine-year-old fourth grade student in a public elementary school. Natasha’s teachers report that she is a hard-working student, who consistently gives her best effort. They note that she struggles with reading and often picks books that are too easy for her. As a writer, they say she has difficulty elaborating and adding details to personal narratives. She has a difficult time getting her thoughts down on paper.

They were all ranked Not Proficient in the recent Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress (M-Step).

➢Dan➢Dan is a ten-year-old fourth grader attending a

public elementary school in Central Michigan.

Dan had social challenges at his previous school

and medical challenges in his early years of

schooling. His standardized testing from his

previous year in school indicates reading

difficulties. Dan is currently in the process of

completing his second year of fourth grade.

Think-Pair-Share

➢Use the Assessment Data Summary

Sheet for Dan to identify Dan’s patterns of

reading difficulties.

➢Decide intervention focus based on the

identified patterns of reading difficulties for

Dan.

Cluster 1: Automatic word

caller (Dan)

➢The students in this category can decode

words quickly and accurately, but fail to

read for meaning. They may have great

word identification but struggle with

comprehension.

Cluster 1: Automatic word

caller (Dan)

➢ Dan has excellent word identification skills. He scored at

4th-grade level when reading grade level words both on

the QRI-6 Word Lists and the San Diego Quick

Assessment.

➢ However, Dan scored Frustration in comprehension with

both 2nd level passages, that is two levels below his

grade level placement.

➢ When Dan was provided a QRI-6 Listening

comprehension assessment, again his frustration level is

at the second grade. Dan missed all most all implicit

questions.

Dan’s Assessed Needs

➢ Dan’s comprehension performance on the QRI–6

suggests that his literal comprehension is quite strong

but that he has difficulty with more inferential and critical

aspects of understanding.

➢ The data suggest that Dan needs additional instruction in

comprehension and most likely would benefit from

explicit instruction, teacher modeling, and think-alouds of

key reading strategies (e.g., summarizing, self-

monitoring, creating visual representations, evaluating),

using a variety of types of material starting from the

second-grade level.

➢Dan’s Assessed Needs

➢ Although Dan has strong scores in the fluency category,

both in expression and rate, he may be reading too fast

to attend to meaning, especially deeper meaning of the

ideas in the text.

➢ Dan’s teacher should help him understand that the

purpose for reading is to understand and that rate varies

depending on the type of text and the purpose for

reading.

➢ Further, self-monitoring strategies would help Dan check

for understanding and encourage him to think about the

ideas while he is reading.

➢Dan’s Assessed Needs

➢ Dan would also benefit from reading activities such as

building background; developing understanding of new

words, concepts, and figurative language in his “to-be-

read” texts.

➢ Acquiring familiarity with genre structures found in

longer, more complex texts like those found at third

grade and above would provide important opportunities

for his language and conceptual development .

➢ Classroom read-alouds and discussions as well as lots

of additional independent reading would also help Dan in

building language and attention to understanding.

Data-Based Intervention

Lessons for Dan➢ Improve reading comprehension: theme identification,

story elements, and inferences.

➢ Story Maps/Five-Finger Retelling

➢ Think-Alouds

➢ Enhance vocabulary learning

➢ Focuses on academic vocabulary from informational

texts

➢ Presents instruction of morphemes, specifically Latin

and Greek roots.

➢ Improve writing skills

➢ Interactive Writing Frames

➢ Sentence Extending and Combining Activities

Intervention Routine for Dan

➢Quick Writes and Share

➢Guided Reading

➢Words Their Way Word Sorting

➢ Interactive Writing

➢Reader’s Theater with focus on Fluency and

Motivation

➢John➢ John is a ten-year-old fourth grader. He attends a public

elementary school in Central Michigan. He came to the

reading clinic at Central Michigan because he struggles

with reading, writing, and spelling. John has been

classified with ADHD and receives medication for it.

Think-Pair-Share

➢Use the Assessment Data Summary

Sheet for John to identify John’s patterns

of reading difficulties.

➢Decide intervention focus based on the

identified patterns of reading difficulties for

John.

Cluster 3: Word Stumblers

(John)

➢The students in this category have

substantial difficulty with word

identification, but they still have strong

comprehension. Sometimes students are

so focused on understanding what they

are reading that they focus solely on self-

correcting and reading every word the

correct way.

Assessed Needs for John

➢John stumbled on so many words initially

that it seemed unlikely that he would

comprehend what he had read, yet he did.

➢His word identification scores were at

second-grade level, and he read the QRI-6

3rd grade passages at instructional level.

Assessed Needs for John

➢He attempted to read every word in the reading

selections, working until he could figure out

some part of each word and then using context

clues to help him get the entire word.

➢But, as we might predict, John’s rate was very

slow, and his initial attempts to read were

choppy and lacked flow— he spent an

enormous amount of time self-correcting and

rereading.

Assessed Needs for John

➢Although John’s overall fluency score was low,

his primary difficulty does not appear in the area

of either rate or expression; rather, his low

performance in fluency seems to be a result of

his difficulty with decoding.

➢ It is evident in his spelling assessment during

which he could only spell three words right that

put him at the Late Letter-Name-Alphabetic

Stage.

➢Assessed Needs for John

➢ John needs to develop automaticity with word

identification, and to do that he would benefit from

assisted reading (i.e., reading along with others,

monitored reading with a tape, or partner reading) as

well as unassisted reading practice (i.e., repeated

reading, reading to younger students) with materials at

his instructional level.

Data-Based Intervention

Lessons for John➢ Word Recognition

➢ Phonics Routine--Decoding by Analogy

➢ Word Sorting

➢ Sight Word Activities in Text and Sight Word out of Text

➢ Fluency

➢ Choral Reading

➢ Echo Reading

➢ Partner Reading

➢ Whisper Reading

➢ Enhance vocabulary learning

➢ Focuses on academic vocabulary from informational texts

➢ Presents instruction of morphemes, specifically Latin and Greek

roots.

Intervention Routine for John

➢Phonics for Reading

➢ Interactive Reading

➢Words Their Way Word Sorting

➢ Interactive Writing

➢Reader’s Theater with focus on Fluency and

Motivation

➢Natasha➢ Natasha is a nine-year-old fourth grade student in a public

elementary school. Natasha’s teachers report that she is a hard-

working student, who consistently gives her best effort. They note

that she struggles with reading and often picks books that are too

easy for her. As a writer, they say she has difficulty elaborating and

adding details to personal narratives. She has a difficult time getting

her thoughts down on paper.

Think-Pair-Share

➢Use the Assessment Data Summary

Sheet for Natasha to identify Natasha’s

patterns of reading difficulties.

➢Decide intervention focus based on the

identified patterns of reading difficulties for

Natasha.

➢Natasha--Cluster 4➢ Cluster 4: Slow Comprehenders

Students in this cluster struggle with comprehension but may be

strong in word identification. Students may also have some difficulty

in fluency. Most students in this cluster did not enjoy reading and

therefore will fall further behind their classmates.

Assessed Needs for Natasha

➢ Like other students in this cluster, Natasha is a

relatively strong decoder, scoring at fourth-grade

level on all measures of decoding.

➢However, her reading rate is very slow and this

often interferes with comprehension.

Assessed Needs for Natasha

➢A close examination of her reading behaviors

while reading words from the San Diego Quick

Assessment and QRI–6 reading selections

revealed that she had some difficulty reading

multisyllabic words; although, with time, she was

able to read enough words to score at grade

level or above.

➢ It appears that Natasha has the decoding skills

to attack multisyllabic words, but they are not yet

automatic.

Assessed Needs for Natasha

➢ Natasha needs fluency-building activities such as guided

repeated oral reading, partner reading, and Readers

Theatre.

➢ Given her word identification and comprehension

abilities, she most likely could get that practice using

fourth grade material where she will also encounter

multisyllabic words.

➢ It is important to find reading material that is interesting

to Natasha and that, initially, can be completed in a

relatively short time.

Assessed Needs for Natasha

➢ Natasha needs to develop stamina as well as fluency,

and to do that she will need to spend time reading short

and extended texts.

➢ In addition, Natasha might benefit from instruction and

practice in strategies for identifying multisyllabic words

so that she is more prepared to deal with them

automatically while reading.

Data-Based Intervention

Lessons for Natasha➢ Fluency

➢ Choral Reading

➢ Echo Reading

➢ Partner Reading

➢ Reader’s Theatre

➢ Enhance vocabulary learning

➢ Focuses on academic vocabulary from informational texts

➢ Presents instruction of morphemes, specifically Latin and Greek

roots.

➢ Improve writing skills

➢ Interactive Writing Frames

➢ Sentence Extending and Combining Activities

Intervention Routine for Natasha:

Slow Comprehenders

➢Fluency Packets

➢ Interactive Reading

➢Words Their Way Word Sorting

➢Reader’s Theater with focus on Fluency and

Motivation

Phonics for Reading

Activities Included in Third

Level New Sound (not in

every lesson)

Sound Drill

New Words

Challenge Words

Word Parts

Words with Word

Parts

Sight Words

Passages

Spelling

Practice Activities

Work Check

Checking Up (every third lesson beginning with lesson 3)

Word Study Instruction

Using Words Their Way

Typical Sort Introduction

Interactive Read Aloud

CMU Reading Clinic

Student Workbook

For

Rosa

Written By Nikki Giovanni

Illustrated by Bryan Collier

Student __________________

Tutor ____________________

Traditional Read-

Aloud

Interactive Read-

Aloud

Teacher reads with enthusiasm

and models good prosody.

Teacher reads with enthusiasm

and models good prosody.

Teacher reads for dramatic

performance and rarely

pauses.

Teacher often pauses to

engage students in various

ways.

Texts can be at a range of

complexity levels.

Texts are somewhat above

grade level.

Texts are predominantly

literature.

Texts represent a balance of

literature and nonfiction.

Vocabulary and text structure

are incidental to the lesson.

Vocabulary and text structure

are integral to the lesson.

Writing and grammar

instruction are not a part of the

read-aloud.

The read-aloud is a

springboard to writing and

grammar.

Reader’s Theater

S Practice fluency

S Motivate to read

59

PRE & POST RESULTS FOR Dan

Phonics Pre – Level 3 Subtest F

Phonics Post – Level 3 Subtest H

Spelling Pre – 50/87 Late within Word Pattern

Spelling Post – 53/87 Early Syllables and

Affixes

NWEA RIT Scores Fall – 174

NWEA RIT Scores Winter -- 183

60

PRE & POST RESULTS FOR John

Phonics Pre – Level 3 Subtest F

Phonics Post – Level 3 Subtest H

Spelling Pre – 30/87 Late Letter Name-Alphabetic

Spelling Post – 39/87 Middle Within Word Pattern

NWEA RIT Scores Fall – 177

NWEA RIT Scores Winter -- 200

61

PRE & POST RESULTS FOR

Natasha

Phonics Pre – Level 3 Subtest G

Phonics Post – Level 3 Subtest H

Spelling Pre – 61/87 Early within Syllables and

Affixes

Spelling Post – 64/87 Middle within Syllables

and Affixes

NWEA RIT Scores Fall – 176

NWEA RIT Scores Winter -- 189

➢Conclusion

➢ Every year thousands of U.S. students take standardized

tests and state reading tests, and every year many are

struggling. We need to dig deeper and find the answers

as to why they are struggling.

➢ However, we should not stop there. We need to apply

the strategies and activities depicted in the cognitive

model related to the issues in our classroom and with

each student.

➢ Our research shows that we can do it if we use

assessments to identify individual struggling readers’

patterns of reading difficulties to provide data-based

interventions.

➢References➢ Caldwell, J. S., & Leslie, L. (2013). Intervention

strategies to follow informal reading inventory

assessment: So what do I do now? (3rd ed.). Boston,

MA: Pearson.

➢ McKenna, M. C., & Dougherty Stahl, K. A. (2015).

Assessment for reading instruction (3rd ed.). New York,

NY: Guilford Press.

➢ Spear-Swerling, L. (2016). Common types of reading

problems and how to help children who have them. The

Reading Teacher, 69(5), 513-522.

➢ Valencia, S. W., & Buly, M. R. (2004). Behind test

scores: What struggling readers really need. The

Reading Teacher, 57(6), 520-531.

64

Q & A